It is miracle Saturday. I don’t usually get online on a Saturday; let alone one that is rainy. So, I thought I would share a bit of my life with you.

When I do get online, one of my favorite blogs is Crazy Aunt Purl. I have secretly been thinking about living in L.A. a lot lately. I have no idea why; okay, there is the warmer weather, but I would HATE the traffic. But, Crazy Aunt Purl wrote a most moving blog on August 17; when the gardeners her landlord hired totally destroyed her garden. It was an act of vandalism, as far as I am concerned. My heart sunk when I saw it, I can only imagine how she felt when she came home and discovered it. Her rows of beautiful corn, I have four stalks that have yet to reach knee height, and her pumpkin vines are now just like four sticks sticking up, with one tiny pumpkin sitting forelornly in the mud. How mean can someone be, to do that to a person, after that person has worked for months to put food, they grew, on the table?

Anyway, that is how they grow, with tender loving care, in Sunny L.A. This has been a cool year and this is how they have grown in rainy, cool, Indiana this year.

Let’s just hope these striped babies are well hidden from the two orphan fawns that are eating my ripe tomatoes.

My pumpkin patch is creeping out into the grass, which is now impossible to mow without cutting the pumpkins. It originates from the top o the picture (where the tomato cages are and is growing out to the bottom of the picture, and on the right side, even growing up the side of my studio.

And, here is one of my baby yellow pumpkins in this patch.

To end up, I will show you what IS tornado damage. The expert came out to one house and declared it to be straight wind but my yard was damaged with things falling in a circular pattern throughout. I have very thick hostas in front of my studio. I was going to thin them this fall, but this is what I have on one side now.

You can see the progressive damage as the wind whipped around. The sticks at the corner of the studio were full grown hosta just as the one under the window is; even though it is also beaten a bit. This is one side of the door, the plants on the other side of the door were barely damaged at all. The tree to the right of this building, past my garden, had a large limb ripped off and it went to the right. The limb on my roof was knocked to the right, and all around my yard, they were knocked down in that swirl pattern.

My next door neighbor was home during the storm and he heard the freight train sound, so I am presuming the eye went over their house.

It was very quiet, at our home last week. No tv blaring, no air conditioner blasting, no microwave buzzing and dinging, no toaster shooting bread in the air (we have a very energetic toaster), no internet, no lights, no shower. Okay, there were drawbacks too.

Early Tuesday, our area was hit by a tornado. Irritating little Chihuahua and I were home alone and the wind blew and limbs were horizontal and the sheet of rain was so dense you could not see through it. It came up fairly quick and I watched the window, with one eye, while I got her harness on (she can be really slippery) and I moved a few things away from the window, and was ready to head downstairs.

Once, when I was a child, a tornado went over our house. It was one of my few pre-school memories but I remember the sound like a train was roaring overhead. I was also in one in Gettysberg, PA, while on vacation. That time was like this, except we did not have golf ball size hail.

Other than several trees down, and one very large limb on our roof, we were pretty lucky. We didn’t even lose a lot of food. Our cheap, little freezer from WalMart, was pretty packed and I put everything I could in there from the fridge freezer and it held. The neighbor lost half their roof as a huge tree crashed through it. The roads were closed with hot wires and trees. We had a level 2, stay off the road order and a water boil order.

By Thursday, the weather was heating up and husband needed airconditioning or I was going to suffocate him myself as his breathing, or attempt to, really gets loud when he has trouble. So, we were off to Indy for the cheap seats and air conditioning. Us, and the two boys watched two movies and ended up eating two, not so cheap, meals. The lights came back on Friday evening.

The things you really miss without electricity: showers and ice and an oven or microwave. I told them, if it happens again, we should just break out the tent and camp in the yard.

We arrived home Sunday night, via a long and winding route. I am appalled at the lack of good information out there, in this technological age, about the extent of the damage. We did find road closings, however, but I understand the problem as it is in a constant state of flux and we had to find our own way around the damage.

We passed Camp Atterbury and a convoy of trucks loaded with soldiers and equipment for clearing brush and trees in neighboring towns from the tornado, of the week before. The Camp itself suffered more than $19 million in damage to fifty buildings and to infrastructure. This does not include the cost of multiple vehicles that were damaged.

Edinberg was heavily hit by the tornado. Blue plastic covered the roofs of home after home. Garage doors were bowed out and damaged. I am presuming this was some type of air pressure thing, or wind blowing in under the door and following the walls and ceiling to try to exit at the weakest point. The tree devastation was incredible. Properties were lined with downed and splintered hundred year old and younger trees.

We did not pass a lot of flood damage and breathed a sigh of relief when we drove down our driveway to see our house. Surrounded by so much flooding, we were very fortunate indeed to only have water damage to two son’s lower floor (walk out basement) rooms. We need to find a new bed for one boy and we did a ton of laundry and ripped up carpeting, which needed it anyway. Our dam stood but the thick logs that lined it, as the boys walk over it to the bus, were washed to the other side, and are in the gully, so it did go over the dam but did not destroy the dam. I’m sure our neighbor at the other end of the gully is happy too.

Jackson Township is under a boil order until at least Friday. With six people in the house, that’s a real pain but certainly not the worst thing in the world.

Near us is Trevlac, in Jackson Township, and it was under water as of Saturday. The fire department was saved, possibly by a railroad track that was built up above the level of the ground. I believe the dam at Lake Lemon may be what flooded Trevlac.

FROM NEWS REPORTS:

Johnson, Morgan and Brown Counties all experienced severe flooding and have been declared in a state of emergency.

Houses in Helmsburg were flooding and being evacuated.

A dam in the Beech Tree area was breaking. I don’t know how that turned out.

Emergency evacuations south of Sweetwater Trail went all the way to Nashville. Jackson Township Fire Department, where one son is a volunteer fireman, was evacuated due to high water coming into the station.

Johnson Memorial Hospital in Franklin had water to the first floor and cars were submerged up to their windshields in the county government parking lot.

Dams failed in the Prince’s Lakes area, threatening the town of Nineveh. (30 miles south of Indianapolis)

There were evacuations in the Lake Lemon area. (10 miles ne of Bloomington)

Dams near Gold Point were close to collapse.

Near Martinsville, which is where my mom lives, there were motorboat and helicopter rescues as hundreds of people in Martinsville and Paragon were evacuated. Last night my mother was told to prepare for evacuation but the last I heard is that the water had not reached the buildings generator so they were safe. As of Saturday, all the major roadways in the southern part of Morgan County were closed. At one point power was shut down to the city, for safety. Water at the Martinsville Industrial Park, on Saturday, was armpit-deep. Auto Dealerships and businesses were flooded out. KMart had a minimum of eight inches of water in their store.

The worse is now over for Martinsville, we hope, and has left 400 to 500 homes damaged with hundreds of residents in shelters or staying with relatives or friends. Trash trucks and rescue crews are now working to clean debris and remove damaged possessions. Artesian Square and the Martinsville Plaza are two of the hardest-hit areas. Three auto dealers, a grade school, lumber yard and Dairy Queen, two motels and other restaurants are also badly damaged. Residents returned home on the south side of Martinsville to salvage what they could.

Mooresville did get some damage also, but I have not read how much.

Nashville did have some evacuations. One of which was Creekstone Apartments, where more than three feet of water flooded the complex. People were stranded at the Salt Creek Golf Retreat, on State Road 46. A hovercraft retrieved them and took them to safety. Power was out in a lot of areas and Brown County has been declared a disaster area. As of Saturday, all roads were passable, with extreme caution for cleanup crews.